The Old Portland Curiosity Shop – it’s not just where we host that has a lot of history!

We’re not just keen on our local history at Portland, we’re also the proud custodians of some pretty unique history ourselves – in the form of the ‘Old Portland Curiosity Shop’.

Our current home at Easton Square, Portland, was originally built as a farmhouse in the 18th century.  Now Grade II listed, the old cottage is now Osprey Holiday Cottages’ home.  It still features the majority of the original Georgian features.  This includes the foundations, made from old ships’ timbers!

The birth of the Old Portland Curiosity Shop

As the local area was developed further, the house became owned by the Samson family at Portland – who went on to buy Pennsylvania Castle in the 1900s.  It was then that Charles Cox from Dorchester rented it from them as a family home which he eventually filled with eight daughters.

Charles had married a daughter of the Pearce family and the couple turned the ground floor of their new home into a grocer’s shop.  According to the Dorset Echo article, this was the start of the old curiosity shop.

The shop ceased trading shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939, but Charles Cox had not moved with the times and had refused to have electricity installed.

He was a familiar sight delivering groceries around the island by horse and cart.  That said, he did not appear to have been ‘your friendly corner shopkeeper’.  In fact, he and his family were all considered to have been rather aloof except for Fanny.  She was the last surviving member of the Cox family who lived to the age of 102.

From the 20th to the 21st century

In 2006 the old Green Shop had new owners, Bob and Pam Cornock, of Cornwall.  They were regular visitors to the isle.  In buying the premises believed they had bought the last house on the island owned by the Samson family.

The couple slowly turned dereliction into delight, preserving the 18th century features as much as possible.  They removed only one thing – the gas jets by which old Mr Cox illuminated his premises.  There are still plenty of original fittings from a bygone age!

This was carried on through to it was sold again in the 2010s and was a gift shop before we moved in.  We did this after outgrowing our previous shopfront at Reforne, Easton in 2022.

Credit: Hilda Swinney; Dorset Echo, https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/25285932.family-living-time-warp-old-portland-cottage-dorset/